The lawn enemies waiting to ruin your garden

Growing a healthy and vibrant-looking lawn can be a rewarding experience, but there are some common stumbling blocks you may encounter along the way – some of which you may not even think about before shelling our hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars to lay a new turf.

Here are four main lawn enemies to think about before it’s too late.

Dogs

Have you been frustrated by small brown or yellow patches all over your lawn? Well sorry to break the news to you, but that’s probably your dog’s fault. While your lawn is obviously immensely preferable to your house when it comes to where your dog relieves itself, dog urine is incredibly high in nitrogen, which makes it damaging to your lawn.

There are a range of possible solutions to this problem, some of which treat the dog and some of which treat the spot. Your best bet is probably among the following:

– Feed your dog a supplement designed to neutralise the nitrogen in its urine.

– Train your dog to urinate somewhere in the yard where you won’t mind the grass being discoloured.

– Encourage your dog to drink more water. This will dilute the amount of nitrogen in your dog’s urine, reducing the damage to your lawn.

Weeds

Weeds may start off as something small and innocuous, but if you let them go unchecked they can become root systems which seriously compromise the strength and health of your lawn. Weed such as bindiis, clover, and dandelions can all be removed through a combination of hand removal and spot-application of herbicides and weed killers, but it’s important to constantly monitor your lawn so that you can catch weeds before they make themselves at home. Otherwise you run the risk of a weed infestation that you can’t quite get rid of.

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Trees

You might be surprised to hear it, but trees can be rather bad for your lawn, for a number of reasons. The main one concerns lighting. Many people plant trees in their yard to provide shade, but many types of grasses don’t do so well when given less light throughout the day. It can cause the affected spots to discolour, or even die off, leaving you with patches of dirt where lovely grass should be.

Your best options are to either choose a type of grass that doesn’t mind less light, or plant the tree in a part of your yard where its shadow won’t touch your lawn too much.

You

When it comes right down to it, your actions are the most crucial factor in growing and maintaining a healthy and good-looking lawn. So if you’re being lazy about watering, feeding, and mowing your lawn, how do you expect it to thrive? It might seem like something that you can leave and come back to once it’s grown, but a good lawn requires constant care and nurturing in the form of keeping it mowed and trimmed, and making sure it’s got all the nutrients and water it needs to stay healthy and grow.

As mentioned before, maintaining a healthy lawn is about constant vigilance, dedication, and knowing what is and isn’t good for it. So do your research, and make sure you’re giving your lawn the attention it deserves, otherwise you’ll never get the beautiful lawn you want.

To our knowledge, all information in articles on the Canstar Blue website was correct at the time of publication. This information may have changed over time. Refer to the product fact sheet (or relevant similar documentation) before making any purchase decision. Canstar Blue's website terms and conditions apply.